[wp-docs] More about a book

[Podz]

Late last year - before 1.5 - there was a post to the forums asking 
about whether a book would be warranted. I said No (as did others) and 
then promptly got very angry. The reasons why don't matter now. But what 
it clearly illustrated was that someone wanted to take information 
freely given by others, chop it about a bit and then sell it to a 
publisher. They make a nice profit for a few weeks work, and we forever 
pick up the pieces when people come to the forums saying "Well the book 
said....."
That scenario would seriously annoy me on a number of levels.
And it WILL happen.

Unless we get in first.
WordPress is ours. GPL all you want, but we have laboured on the project 
in many different ways over a long period of time. If there is to be a 
book then that must come from our hands, not those of someone out to 
make a quick buck.

We can be honest about the shelflife of the book, we can have 
"Official!" all over it, we can improve it version by version, we will 
have a tangible product of our work and that of others, we could all 
even call ourselves "Authors" :) - it's it the logical extension of all 
the work we have done so far isn't it ?
It will never be bang up to date but unless the coders take a few years 
off it never can be.
And if we don't start now, when do we ? When can we possibly be ready ?
(WordPress - the book. The /ideal/ stocking filler !)

I can't speak for Carthik but I doubt very much that given his time and 
involvement in WordPress that he would say No.

I can see there is a "rights" issue somewhere, but in some ways we 
already ride roughshod over that. If I post a solution to the forums and 
someone copies that to Codex, whose is it ? Submissions to the forum are 
not GPL. I wouldn't like to even guess where they would fall.
My feeling is that if WE publish a book and are open about costs and 
profits then as others see that there is no nest-feathering going on, 
that it really is given back to the project then if anything that would 
have a positive effect.

But we'll know nothing until it's published.

P.